"We broke a bottom end of the engine yesterday, and broke two today," U-3 owner Ed Cooper told Brad Luce on KPTK radio after the boat went dead in Heat 1A at Seafair. "It's been a run of bad luck. I hate saying that, but I don't know what else to call it," he said.

Cooper said that in qualifying the boat was on its way to its fastest lap ever in Seattle when they lost the engine on Friday.